We had anticipated arriving to our ministry sites in Malawi for November sometime around the first of the month. We learned a valuable saying from Racing alum before departing on our journey to Africa – “T.I.A.”, short for, “This is Africa.” A saying used to explain the unexplainable that can happen while on African time. “T.I.A.” was used often as our three day travel to Malawi slowly stretched to seven full days of travel from Bucharest, Romania to Muzuzu, Malawi.
What does it take to get to Africa? Because of the size of our traveling squad (65 Racers) our flight plan was split in two groups during transit to Johannesburg, South Africa. I was blessed to be part of the morning crew flying out that got to experience an eight hour layover in Athens, Greece. This was a surreal blessing. We spent about 3 hours near the Acropolis, soaking up what looked too amazing to be man-made, and walked the same steps as Paul did up Mars Hill where he used to preach the gospel. From Greece we flew to Doha, Qatar, a state in Saudi Arabia, to catch a connecting flight to Johannesburg. Really, within 24 hours we had breakfast in Bucharest, lunch in Athens, dinner in Doha and breakfast the following morning in Johannesburg.
The whole squad reunited at the Johannesburg airport last Sunday morning (10/31) where we thought buses were going to meet us to begin a 40 hour ride to Blantyre, Malawi…not really sure where to expand here without writing a novel. Long story shortened, our journey to Blantyre involved our expectations being taken by God and Him removing any plan we thought we had. Instead of a few hectic days of travel, He gave us a whole week as a squad together to enter in to the promised land.
After realizing the confusion with the buses at the airport (T.I.A.) we were blessed to find a hostel in Johannesburg to house all of us Racers. Planning to leave the next morning…turned into the squad staying another evening (T.I.A.), and leaving Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. Border crossings are an interesting experience in Africa. This took most of the time during our journey though four African countries and taught us what it felt like to be the minority. Some tough, unexpected situations gave us the only option of worshipping God more and more for what He was leading us through. This was an awesome exercise of faith and of being able to say, ‘Okay God, clearly any idea we have does not come close to what you would like us to walk through – take this and run with it.’ And He did. For a week.
After 84 hours on a bus through South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi with 64 other Racers, He finally led teams Haven and A Team to our ministry site in Mzuzu, Malawi. We arrived safely Saturday morning at 7 a.m. We are staying at the Pentecostal Holiness Church of Mzuzu, and the hospitality is mind blowing. We have the amazing opportunity to serve with a church who has never hosted a mission team before. Ever. It is an honor to be the first team of Christians to serve with this congregation, as well as the first white people. This is pretty funny with the young kids – I’ve already made several cry, simply because they are not used to ‘whites’, as the locals call us. God is good, and this past week is one I’m sure the 65 of us will never forget.
